Vagina Squids from Mars – Kelvin V.A. Allison and Renn White

3.5 stars

Vagina Squids from Mars wasn’t what I was expecting at all, but it was a brilliantly weird ride, for sure! I had a lot of fun with it, and I’d absolutely love to see a sequel as the epilogue left a nice opening for it.

Here, we have a rather eclectic group: an author, an actor, a disabled innkeep, a traumatized teenage girl, and a stoner conspiracy theorist. These five are the only ones who know and believe in the alien threat on the beach and are hellbent on stopping it before the annual fireworks display offers up hordes of new victims to the vagina squids.

It’s a really fun book to read and gave me old-school 80s camp vibes, especially with the prevalent use of hairspray! I loved the interaction between the characters and their sometimes over-the-top reactions to things. There were several times that I snorted or laughed at how Roswell, in particular, reacted to certain things. I was also extremely satisfied to see Mike Trent get exactly what he deserved >.>

Where this book lost a little for me was the few inconsistencies across the book. One more pass through editing would’ve taken care of the spelling (too instead of to, their instead of there) and continuity mistakes (like a couple names being wrong in the scene or a few things happening that were set up differently in earlier chapters).

I had a blast with this, though, and will happily read more of these authors! I’m still holding out for that sequel 👀👀 #morevaginasquids #vaginasquidrep